Enzan. John Donohue
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they have heard what you have said. Sometimes, it’s because they are deeply uneasy. I wondered which reason made Miyazaki smile.
I gestured at the files. “The point, I suppose, is in there?”
Again the smile. But it was tight and fleeting, more a grimace than anything else. Miyazaki took a breath, as if bracing himself. One hand pressed on the pile of folders, an unconscious expression of a wish to keep them forever closed. But he couldn’t.
I sensed movement on the periphery of the room and Ito appeared at the table. He silently asked for permission to join us and, for once, Miyazaki’s facade cracked and he nodded wearily in acquiescence. Ito sat next to me on the right and reached over for the files.
“Dr. Burke,” Ito began, “what we are discussing here is highly confidential. The Miyazaki family would ask for your utmost discretion.” I just nodded. Across from me Miyazaki raised a hesitant finger. The younger man paused for a fraction of a second, then slid a piece of typescript in front of me. “With respect, Miyazaki-san asks you to sign this nondisclosure agreement.” Ito’s voice was distant and formal, a sign of just how uncomfortable he was with the request.
I pushed it away, back toward Miyazaki. “Don’t be ridiculous. You asked me to come here. If you want to talk with me, talk, otherwise I’m leaving.” I stood up.
The old man croaked something: a name perhaps, or a command. I didn’t catch it, but the man who had frisked me at the door appeared by my side and put a restraining hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t a light touch, and I felt my core tightening and the anticipation of a fight spiraling up within me. It’s a familiar feeling. I wonder sometimes whether I like it too much. I leaned in toward Miyazaki.
“Tell him to get his hand off me, Miyazaki. I’m only going to say it once. If you can’t trust me, you wouldn’t have invited me up here. Don’t insult me with a piece of paper.”
He sighed, closed his eyes, opened them, and nodded at the goon at my side. The hand came off my shoulder. But I didn’t sit down.
“Please, Dr. Burke,” Miyazaki said, and his voice was small and tight, like a man being choked. “We need your help.”
I looked at Ito. He was standing as well, and watching me with tremendous interest, his eyes lit up with anticipation. Part of him wanted me to sit down; it was his duty to make that happen. But part of him would have liked to see me tussle with the man standing by my shoulder. He was the only honest person in the room. I don’t know whether I liked him for it, but at least I understood him.
“Please,” Miyazaki begged, gesturing to my chair. And there was something familiar in the tilt of his head, in the cast of his eyes. So I sat down, if only to try to figure out what was creating that sense of familiarity.
Ito sat down, too, and arranged the files in front of him. He took out some color photos of a striking young Japanese woman. Wide eyes, long black hair that shimmered with highlights that seemed almost blue. She had a playful smile that almost made you feel she was mocking the camera. But it was subtle and it could have been my imagination. “Miyazaki-san’s daughter Chie,” Ito told me.
“How old?”
“Twenty-three,” he said. “After graduating from Tokyo Daigaku, she came last year to New York for graduate work.” I nodded. Tokyo University is Japan’s most prestigious school. A child of someone like Miyazaki would have gone there. But there’s an allure to study in the United States, and it’s not unusual for people to come west for grad school. I looked across at Miyazaki, his face once more impassive. I wondered how he’d felt about his daughter slipping her chain and getting loose among the barbarians. Probably like most fathers, I realized. Then Ito passed me another picture.
In this one, the mocking smile was more fully in place. The eyes seemed narrower and her long hair had been cut shorter in a choppy style and was streaked with pink and green. It wasn’t a formal posed shot. It was taken outside and the blurry background of building and people made me wonder if it was a surveillance photo taken with a long lens.
“Nice nose ring,” I said to Ito, then regretted it as soon as the words popped out. I was getting the picture: child of privilege running amok. Miyazaki didn’t wince at my comment, but it must have been hard for him. Sorry, Dad.
“She has taken to her new environment,” Ito ventured an understatement. The old man at the end of the table snorted.
“We have,” Miyazaki began, then cleared his throat, “I have deep concerns about my daughter and the people she is associating with, Dr. Burke.”
I sighed inwardly. The daughter-gone-wild-in-grad-school story is as common as it is sad. Kids breaking free. Parents holding on. Lots of room for hurt feelings. But the sheer grind of life imposes a type of conformist gravity. Most people eventually fall out of orbit. It takes a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll to hit escape velocity. The probability was that she’d be OK. But I’m not a parent; maybe probable isn’t good enough to let you sleep at night.
How was I supposed to change this for him? “I don’t see any role I can play in this problem, Miyazaki-san. Have you spoken with her?”
He looked down at the polished surface of the table. “Numerous times. And each conversation is worse than the last.”
“She has stopped attending classes,” Ito added. “She hasn’t been in her apartment for weeks.”
I looked from one to the other. “If she’s been out of contact, you can file a missing-person report.” The old man snorted again.
Miyazaki was shaking his head. “She is in sporadic contact with us, Dr. Burke. But we do not know exactly where she is.” He was clearly uncomfortable but didn’t seem eager to explain.
I shrugged. “Cut off the money. That usually brings them back.” Miyazaki’s shoulders slumped. He looked at his father, whose eyes gleamed with anger. This is a conversation they’ve had before.
“I am afraid it is more complicated and delicate a situation than that,” Ito interjected. He paused and looked toward the two other men at the table. “It is a matter of the greatest delicacy and involves the family honor.” And now he seemed reluctant to continue. Miyazaki was silent. His face was stone.
“Honor,” the old man snapped. His Japanese was guttural and harsh, but the word makoto, honor, rang out in the room. “Look at him!” A claw waved in my direction. “What does this one know of honor?” He probably thought a barbarian like me wouldn’t understand him when he spoke Japanese.
I turned my head and stared at him. “Saya wa naku tomo mi wa hikaru,” I spat back at him. He looked shocked. Though the scabbard is lacking, the blade gleams. It’s an old samurai chestnut, and even now I’m amazed I was able to locate it in the dingy, cluttered storage space of my memory, but it seemed to stupefy them all. I was relieved I had come up with a somewhat elegant rejoinder. My original impulse had been to tell him to shove it.
Ito suppressed a wry smile. The old man seemed incensed: probably offended that I had the nerve to speak his language. His mottled face flushed and his lips grew wet with spittle as he spun himself up for a tantrum. Miyazaki rose in alarm. “Ito,” he said, “my father is not well.” He reached the old man and began to wheel him away. “Please continue with our guest,” he commanded over his shoulder as he pushed the old lizard out of the room.
Ito stood watching until the door shut firmly behind them. He sighed. “Perhaps it is just as well.” He moved to the table and sat down, his hands resting on the folders before him. “The rest of the story is not so pleasant. As a father, it would be distressing for Miyazaki-san to share these things about his daughter.”
I raised my eyebrows and sat down. Now at least I was getting somewhere. There was no reason I could see why a highly placed Japanese family would need my help in corralling a wayward daughter. I’ve got a degree in history, not social work. I give lots of advice in the dojo, but most of it is highly specialized: I don’t care about how you feel about your relationship with your father. I am concerned with